


1984: Adagio

by Luthien



Series: Pas de Deux [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Backstory, Drama, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-07
Updated: 2005-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:26:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of another year at Hogwarts. A sequel to 1981: First Steps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1984: Adagio

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written in 2005, so some aspects of it have been overtaken by canon.

_Adagio_  
1\. _Music_ A slow passage, movement, or work, especially one using adagio as the direction.  
2\. A section of a pas de deux in which the ballerina and her partner perform steps requiring lyricism and great skill in lifting, balancing, and turning.  
\-- [Bartleby.com](http://www.bartleby.com/61/52/A0075200.html)

* * *

Snape replaced his teacup on its saucer and scowled down at the almost empty student tables from his usual place at the far end of the teachers' table. The Leaving Feast was over, and most of the children had wasted no time in departing the Great Hall the moment they were able. There were a few stragglers, but before long they, too, would be off in their House common-rooms and dormitories, excitedly preparing for their return home from school for the summer holidays. No doubt, they could hardly wait to escape from the confines of Hogwarts.

Snape wished he could escape. When he'd been their age, he'd still believed that escape was possible. More fool he. If there was one thing he'd learnt in the course of his existence, it was that all roads led to Hogwarts. At least, they did for one Severus Snape.

"Still here, Severus?" said Minerva McGonagall's voice by his ear.

"Unless your eyes deceive you, Professor McGonagall, I'm afraid I am very much here," he replied, turning slowly to look at her. Her arrival came as no surprise; he'd been expecting her at some point this evening, and she had a long history of accosting him in the Great Hall at the end of the evening meal.

"I'm surprised at that," she said, resting her hands on the back of the empty chair next to him. "I thought that surely you wouldn't waste a moment in getting back to the Slytherin common room to celebrate." She indicated the walls of the Great Hall, resplendent in the green and silver of Slytherin House, which had been declared the winner of that year's House Cup barely more than an hour before.

"Appropriate celebrations will be held," he said, lips tightening.

She stared at him over the top of her glasses.

"At a fitting locale," he added, once he realised that she wasn't going to be satisfied with his original answer.

She kept staring at him. Hard.

"In the fullness of time," he bit out. "However, right now, the members of Slytherin House are preparing for their departure on the Hogwarts Express tomorrow morning." He grabbed his teacup - rather too hard because it rattled against the saucer - and quickly drank the little tea that remained in it. He applied his whole attention to the task, a less than subtle hint that he didn't wish to pursue the subject further.

Snape heard the scrape of the chair as Minerva pulled it out from the table and sat down beside him.

"It's not like you to pass up the opportunity to gloat, Severus," Minerva remarked.

Damn the woman, thought Snape. And trust her to ignore his wishes and press on anyway. Nothing ever deterred her. Nothing Snape could do, anyway.

"Why on earth should I need to gloat, Minerva? It's not as if any of the other houses gave us much of a run for our money this year."

She gave him the look, then. The look that said he shouldn't be so foolish as to attempt to pull the wool over _her_ eyes. It was the look he'd been familiar with since he first came to Hogwarts as a miserable little first year student.

"I'm extremely pleased that Slytherin has won the House Cup this year," he said, replacing his teacup on its saucer. "Not _surprised_ , of course, but pleased."

"I do wish you wouldn't carry on in such a tiresome way, Severus. It's clear that something has displeased you."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Professor McGonagall. I'm in no better or worse mood than usual."

"Definitely no better mood than usual, certainly," Minerva snorted. She looked at him over the tops of her glasses. "Still smarting over the _other_ result?"

Snape eyed her coolly, stare for stare. "What other result is there tonight? Slytherin has won the House Cup. Who cares about anything else?"

"Well I seem to recall that earlier in the year you cared rather a lot about the outcome of the Quidditch Cup competition."

Smug! The woman was daring to be smug! Gryffindors were always the most appallingly ungracious winners.

Snape smiled sourly. "If you'll excuse me, Deputy Headmistress, I have some things to take care of elsewhere tonight." He rose to his feet.

"Oh come, now, Severus." Minerva stood as well. "There's no need to end the year on such an unfriendly note."

"Unfriendly?" said Snape. "Who's being unfriendly? I would never dream of being less than courteous when addressing an esteemed colleague."

"Exactly," Minerva said dryly, and gave him another hard look.

Snape sighed in resignation. "What do you want?" he asked.

"I think a little celebratory drink might be in order."

"Oh?" he said. "I wouldn't have expected the head of Gryffindor to suggest a toast to a Slytherin victory."

"And you would be perfectly right in that expectation. I was thinking more of drinking to the fact that we've survived to the end of another year."

Survived... Yes, they'd survived. How much had his life changed in only three years? Not so long ago, he'd been concerned with survival in the most basic sense. Now, his battles revolved around the everyday crises of adolescent witches and wizards, and the daily grind of teaching in this place.

God, he needed that drink just thinking about what his life was made up of these days.

"You wouldn't happen to have any of that Special Reserve left, by any chance?" he asked, though not with a great deal of expectation of an answer in the affirmative. Following the loss of her final bet with Quintus Abernethy, Snape's predecessor, Minerva had had one bottle remaining of the caseful of Ogden's Special reserve that her father had bequeathed to her. The contents of that bottle had managed to stretch across quite a few evenings of quiet drinks between heads of house over the last three years, but Snape couldn't imagine that even the most powerful bottomless bottle charm could last much longer.

"As a matter of fact, I do have a wee drop left."

"Really?" Snape didn't try to hide his surprise - or his interest. "I would have thought-"

"I'm in no immediate danger of running out, Severus. Never fear." The corners of Minerva's mouth turned up into a small but definite smile, and her eyes gleamed with the satisfaction of a secret undisclosed. Snape found himself wondering how she might have looked fifty years ago when wearing that particular expression.

He cast one last glance down the length of the Great Hall.

"You there!" he shouted at the small group of students that remained: a couple of Ravenclaws and a Gryffindor, idly chatting as though they had every right to do so. "Time for you to be in your common rooms."

A couple of muttered "yes sir"s and they were on their way. Snape wouldn't have been surprised if Minerva had admonished him once the students had departed for being needlessly - in her opinion - stern with them, but before they'd even reached the door she called out, "Hurry along now, Barkworth - and you others, too. You know the rule."

Once they were alone in the room, Snape turned to her, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

"Tonight is not the night to be chasing up children who are not where they should be," Minerva said by way of explanation. She nodded towards the doorway. "The Special Reserve awaits."

Snape wasted no time in following her out of the room.

* * *

The Special Reserve was as good as ever, Snape decided as he sat back, whisky glass in hand, in the comfortable red tartan velvet armchair he always occupied when visiting the Head of Gryffindor for a quiet meeting and a glass or two. Minerva occupied her customary seat, a matching chair on the other side of a low table, upon which sat the familiar green bottle of Ogden's. Snape sipped the whisky appreciatively, letting it slip down his throat and start up a small, comfortable fire in his belly. It went some way - some _slight_ way - to making up for the payment Minerva McGonagall had exacted from him the week before. It still rankled enough to have taken the shine off Slytherin's win for him tonight.

As though reading his thoughts - she wasn't skilled at Legilimency too, was she? - Minerva commented, "Young Charlie Weasley's been the find of the season for our Quidditch team. Not as academically gifted as his brother, to be sure, but no one can touch him on the Quidditch pitch."

The fire in his stomach went out. Snape felt slightly ill.

"Ten points. It was just ten points," he said through gritted teeth.

"What was that, Severus? I don't think I quite heard you."

"You heard me," he snarled.

"Perhaps if you'd care to express yourself in a complete sentence you might make yourself better understood."

"I think I made myself abundantly clear: just which particular ten points do you think it might possibly be?"

"We've all been giving out and deducting points all year," Minerva pointed out blandly.

"That comment is not worthy of you," said Snape.

After a short silence, Minerva said, "Perhaps not." She took another sip of whisky. "The ten points in question _are_ the ten points by which Gryffindor won the Quidditch final when Charlie Weasley caught the Snitch, I take it?"

"Weasley never would have had a chance to get near the Snitch if that blasted Chaser of yours - what's her name? Mallory? - hadn't blatched our Seeker just as he was about to grab it! There should have been a penalty awarded for that. We were already 140 points in front! The game was all but ours. But instead of winning, Weasley swoops in and-"

"And captured the Snitch, thereby scoring 150 points, and ending the game, in accordance with the rules of Quidditch as it has been played for some centuries now, I believe," said Minerva calmly. "We won, fair and square. No one disputes that."

"I do!" growled Snape.

"Dear me. Does this mean that you're going back on the terms of our bet? How very unsportsmanlike of you, Severus."

"You know damned well I haven't - or didn't you notice my little speech at the celebration dinner last week?"

"The one about the best team winning on the day? Yes, I did notice that, as a matter of fact. It was very gracious of you."

"That is

_not_

__going into the terms of next year's bet!" Snape snarled.

"That's fine with me - just so long as the requirement for the head of the losing house to make a speech complimenting the winning team is replaced with something equally... appropriate."

Snape sipped savagely at his whisky.

"Of course, if Slytherin wins the Cup next year, you wouldn't have to worry about the terms of the bet, would you?"

Snape's teeth clamped down on the rim of his glass with an audible 'clink'.

"Careful, Severus! You don't want to waste any of the Special Reserve."

Snape glowered at her. "Just how much of this do you have left, anyway?"

"Enough," said McGonagall. "But there's still no call to waste it."

"How much?" Snape repeated.

"I still have a few bottles."

"Define 'a few'."

Minerva shrugged. "Most of a caseful." She contemplated her glass.

Snape turned to look her fully in the face, surprised. "So when you told Professor Abernethy that you were giving him the final bottle?"

Minerva smiled. "That was the truth. It was the last bottle - of that particular case. But my father left me two cases of Special Reserve."

Snape's eyes widened.

"It took the best part of twenty years to get through the first case. I'm being more judicious in my consumption of the second, so it should last a good deal longer," she added.

Snape was impressed, despite himself. There was something almost, not quite, but very nearly Slytherin about Minerva McGonagall at times. He knew she wouldn't take it as a compliment, so he decided it was a good idea to say it out loud: "How very... Slytherin of you, Professor McGonagall."

Her eyes narrowed. "Never in your wildest dreams, Severus." She paused. "However my father was sorted into Slytherin House, and he remained a Slytherin quite as much as a canny Scot to the end of his days - and I am my father's daughter, after all." She winked at him, so fast that Snape wasn't entirely sure that it had happened at all.

"I'll have to ensure that I relieve you of at least one bottle of that caseful at the conclusion of next Quidditch season," he said, deeming it best to steer the conversation back into surer waters.

"It would be one way of avoiding having to make a similar speech in front of the whole school next year," Minerva agreed. "Unless, of course, we beat you again."

"I told you, I don't want anything like that in the terms for next year," Snape said through gritted teeth.

"Surely you're not afraid of losing again, Severus - though of course Weasley will still be in our team for some years to come."

"Weren't you the one who always used to decry pinning the hopes of the whole team on one star player and go on and on about the importance of the team as a whole? Right up until Greeves left at the end of last year and Slytherin had to make do with Blacklock as Seeker instead?"

"I still believe very much in the importance of teamwork. A team is only as good as the players of which it is composed. Therefore, it makes sense to fill the team with the best players at one's disposal."

Snape gave her a long look. She was sitting there, looking remarkably relaxed and content. There was a touch of colour in her face, but barely more than normal. Her state couldn't all be attributed to the alcohol. It wasn't as if they'd consumed nearly enough for any real effects to kick in yet. It seemed that she truly was... happy dwelling on her House's most recent victory - and incidentally rubbing Snape's nose in it.

That gave Snape an idea. Gryffindor was hardly the only house that had been winning things of late.

"Since it appears that Gryffindor is going to be on a prolonged winning streak in the Quidditch, perhaps you'd care to widen the terms of our annual bet to include the House Cup as well as the Quidditch Cup?" he asked silkily.

McGonagall frowned. "No thank you, Severus. You have me at an unfair disadvantage there." She refilled both their glasses, and took a sip before continuing. "How many points have you awarded to Gryffindor in the three years you've been teaching at this school? No, don't bother. I am quite certain those points may be counted with ease on the fingers of one hand."

"And you never award points to members of your own house, of course." Snape's lip curled into an un smile.

"You never deduct points from yours." McGonagall's lips firmed into a familiar hard line.

"Somebody has to even out the balance," Snape snapped.

"You only promote unfairness," McGongall said angrily.

"I didn't start it!" he retorted.

"Don't be so childish!" She slammed her whisky glass down on the table between them.

Snape paused in the act of opening his mouth to deliver the next volley. Minerva was breathing hard, her chest heaving. There were two spots of colour high in her cheeks, her square glasses had been pushed slightly askew, and a few strands of hair had come loose from her bun to trail in a dark line down the side of her face. She didn't look like her usual composed self at all.

"Is this the point where I'm meant to grab you by the shoulders, haul you against my manly breast as I declare that I'll show you I'm not a child, and then proceed to ply you with sloppy kisses?" he enquired.

Minerva looked astounded for a moment, as though not sure whether she should be outraged. Then she laughed. "Jemima Fleet's romance novels?"

"I've confiscated a good half-dozen of them this term alone," Snape admitted.

"They're especially popular with the third-years," McGonagall agreed, hands going up behind her head to fix her hair back in place. "Though I didn't realise that they'd also found a receptive audience amongst the staff."

"Not a receptive audience; merely a curious one. However, after a short perusal of one of those I confiscated, I must admit to remaining entirely in the dark as to their appeal. Perhaps one needs to be female in order to properly appreciate them? As a mere male-"

Something close to a growl came from Minerva's throat. Snape was half-surprised to find her still in human form when he glanced over at where she was sitting.

"As a mere male, what would I know?" Snape finished.

McGonagall gave him a look over the top of her spectacles which said quite clearly that she knew what a lucky save that last line had been, but she didn't pursue it. Instead, she took up her whisky glass again, and the two of them fell into a companionable silence. These occasional lulls in the conversation still surprised Snape, even more than that there was a conversation in which to have a lull in the first place. He wasn't by nature a sociable personality. He knew that well. It wasn't just that he'd never be the life of the party; he never wanted to attend the party in the first place. He hated small talk. He was used to awkward silences littering any casual conversation he occasionally had the misfortune to become embroiled in.

And all that had been before he returned to Hogwarts. He hadn't imagined that the situation would improve at all once he became a teacher. On the contrary, he hadn't expected any conversation with his so-called colleagues to be anything less than excruciating on both their parts. He'd resisted all overtures to the full extent of his abilities. He'd only acquiesced to Minerva's repeated overtures because back in his first year at Hogwarts the followers of the Dark Lord had still been enough of a problem for there to be a need for members of the Order of the Phoenix to meet from time to time. All that hardly applied now, of course. There was no longer any need for the heads of Slytherin and Gryffindor to meet for any purpose beyond matters directly relating to the school - and offices and staff rooms were more than adequate settings for conversations of that kind. And yet, somehow, he'd continued the habit of adjourning to Minerva McGonagall's quarters several evenings each month. Dangerous secrets were no longer the order of the day. Now, it was simply for the pleasure of talking, and drinking - he took the opportunity to sample a little more of the contents of the glass in his hand - and simply, well, _being._. To his great surprise, he'd discovered that pauses in a conversation need not be awkward. That if one were sufficiently comfortable in the company of another person, then there need not be any imperative to keep the conversational ball rolling indefinitely. There was something very... pleasant about that.

Ugh. Had he really allowed that last thought to cross his mind? He must be going soft in his old age...

He became aware that Minerva was looking at him again, an eyebrow raised.

"What are you thinking?" she asked bluntly.

Well, even companionable silences couldn't go on for ever - especially not between such rivals as everyone in the school knew the heads of Slytherin and Gryffindor to be.

"Slytherin will win both cups in the same year yet," he promised her. "Starting next year if I have my way. How do you feel about wearing green and silver again? Only for an entire month, this time, I was thinking..."

Snape smirked as Minerva opened her mouth to make an outraged reply. The negotiations involved in hammering out the terms of next year's bet would be the hardest fought yet, if he was any judge.

If he'd had the leisure to dwell on it, Snape would have been surprised to find himself looking forward to the new school year, for the very first time ever. However, the gauntlet had been thrown down, and battle was joined. He had more important things to do right now than sit and brood.


End file.
